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| RON DANTE'S BIOGRAPHY |
| Born Carmine Granito in Staten Island, New York, Ron Dante knew he wanted to be a singer from a very young age. A childhood fall from a tree resulted in a broken arm and, fortuitously, the choice of either squeezing a rubber ball in the afflicted hand or taking up guitar as a means to keep the muscles from atrophying. Ron chose the latter. |
| After recording several singles under the name Ronnie Dante, Ron teamed up with two other staff writers/session singers, Danny Jordan (Vance's nephew) and Tommy Wynn to record a demo of a hilarious parody of the current hit "Leader of the Pack" written by Vance and Pockriss and entitled "Leader of the Laundromat." The song charted, and the three young men toured the country as the group The Detergents, often actually appearing on the bill with The Shangri-La's, who were cordial to the boys but less than thrilled to hear their hit song turned into a comedy. The girls would often throw laundry at the boys during their finale! |
| In 1968, when his old buddy Don Kirshner was tapped as music director for the upcoming Saturday morning cartoon The Archie Show, Ron auditioned for and won the role as the lead singing voice for the animated group The Archies. Over the course of the next three years, Ron, along with songwriter-producer Jeff Barry, would crank out over a hundred Archies tunes, the most popular unarguably being the #1 hit of 1969, "Sugar, Sugar." While this single was at the top of the charts, Ron also had ANOTHER single in the Top Ten at the same time, the Vance/Pockriss-penned "Tracy." Ron was anonymous on both records; "Tracy," along with a whole album's worth of material recorded by a multi-tracked Ron, was released under the name The Cufflinks. |
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| CLICK HERE to go to the next page for the conclusion of Ron's bio and some Ron-related links to explore! |
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| Making the rounds at New York City's famed Brill Building, where tunesmiths worked diligently in cubicles cranking out hit songs, Ron met several folks who would have a hand in shaping his career. One was Don Kirshner, who along with his partner Al Nevins had founded the publishing company Aldon Music. The others were Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, a songwriting team who had had a few successes with tunes such as "Catch a Falling Star" and "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini." |
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